The Federal Court has held that a board may postpone a meeting called by shareholders under section 249F in circumstances where there is a power in the company’s constitution permitting the board to postpone meetings and such power is exercise by the board for a proper purpose and the postponement period is reasonable. In such circumstances, the Court held that the postponement was not an unlawful interference with the statutory right of shareholders under section 249F.

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Act) was passed by the Australian Federal Parliament on 29 November 2018. Our report discusses how to determine whether the Act applies to your organisation and, if it does, what you have to do to comply. It also sets out what must be included in a Modern Slavery Statement, which should give an overview of an entity’s general process for assessing, preventing and addressing modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

On 4 December 2017, the Treasurer directed the ACCC to conduct a “world first” public inquiry into the impact of digital platform services on the state of competition in media and advertising services markets in Australia.

Welcome to Edition 92 of Boardroom Brief. This is a service specifically targeted at the needs of busy non-executive directors. We aim to give you a “heads up” on the things that matter for NEDs in the week ahead – all in two minutes or less.

It’s taken a year, but the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017 has progressed to the next stage with a raft of Government amendments passed by the Senate. Here’s a summary of what’s changed in the Government’s whistleblower reform package, which now goes to the House of Representatives.

One year after announcing that the Government would replace the USO contract with Telstra with a modernised Universal Service Guarantee (USG) by 2020, guaranteeing access to broadband as well as voice services, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has released a summary report outlining the Government’s proposals for delivery of the scheme. Click below to read our full report.

On 5 December 2018, the second last parliamentary sitting day of the year, the Federal Government introduced the Treasury Laws Amendment(Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018 (the Bill), which aims to implement the Government’s so-called ‘big stick’ energy reforms.

On 25 May 2018, the European Union welcomed the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This article reﬂects on our learnings over the past half year: how we have seen Australian organisations manage their compliance obligations, some of the intended and unintended consequences we have seen the GDPR have, and what we might expect to see in the coming months and years.

Welcome to Edition 91 of Boardroom Brief. This is a service specifically targeted at the needs of busy non-executive directors. We aim to give you a “heads up” on the things that matter for NEDs in the week ahead – all in two minutes or less.

The Federal Government has recently published a discussion paper titled ‘Decommissioning Offshore Petroleum Infrastructure in Commonwealth Waters’. We outline in this article the reforms considered in the discussion paper in respect of legal and financial responsibility for decommissioning and how those reforms could impact offshore oil and gas M&A activity.

At the 2018 Annual RBB Economics Conference last Thursday, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims delivered an important speech that highlighted Australia’s position on competition law in light of the current “hipster antitrust” debate.

Open banking is the application of a national Consumer Data Right to the banking industry. It will allow customers to request that their data be transferred to third parties and is expected to facilitate more competition (by facilitating entry of new providers).